With some sadness but with the excitement of freedom at the same time, I've disabled the ability to download Battle Blog source code, thus ceasing open distribution. I'm doing this in order to assist in Battle Blog implementations as a vendor providing service to customers, and, to concentrate future Battle Blog development at a pace and at a level of tinkering more suited to my own proprietary purposes.

In these contemporary times when anyone blogging is probably doing it on WordPress anyway, I know this will not be a major setback to the blogging community. Few individuals have been downloading it in the past few years and enterprise level interest waned away completely longer ago than that. In its heyday it was rewarding to discover new users and new purposes for Battle Blog. The family using it to communicate out about their sick daughter comes to mind (this was pre-Facebook), and I was flattered when a talented one-time VP of a major camera manufacturer adopted it for use as part of a national traffic campaign driven by USA Today circulars. That was pretty cool! Indeed, for classic ASP die hards this has been and still is a great little blogging platform.

As I said, Battle Blog will still be available as a managed service. For reasons of liability protection and others I will not release the code to new customers moving forward but rather host and manage a running implementation on their behalf. Just use the contact page to send me a synopsis of your requirements and we'll discuss arrangements from there. Realistically I expect I will only be using it to propagate my own vast online publishing empire of which I do not actually have. Yet. And if you are running Battle Blog, feel free to fork away. I will keep the Google Group active and respond to anything that pops up to be as helpful as I can.

In fact as for this very site itself, I will keep it up and running, trying to convert it to a topographical publication dealing with the practice and issues of blogging. After so many years of doing it myself I believe I might have a thing or two to say about it one way or another and be able to coach newcomers to the craft.

Archiving functionality is not yet hardcoded (developers can easily build their own in the meantime)

Comment restriction controls are not thoroughly tested but seem to work at a high level

CK editor has been upgraded to the 4.4.0 version and has been preconfigured to inhibit most syntax checking so that anything (including video embeds) work properly while composing an entry.

New "tag" feature allows words in entries to be automatically hyperlinked when word is entered into the tag library. This feature is also great for building your own "quick syntax" since symbols or patterns of words can be spotted and converted to HTML the same way standard words can. So, for example, if there is a profile picture of yourself that you like to include in each or most of your postings, you can associate the HTML syntax needed to insert it with a tag. When composing your entry you can simply enter the tag and in the actual entry and your profile picture will appear automatically.

More checks to prevent input hacks have been in place but this is a work in progress. Most of the most vulnerable input fields are protected or mitigated but there are probably more to be checked. This will likely never end.

-- That's it. Of course there were bug fixes and new implementations of a minor scale that I am surely missing in this detail but these won't be change-logged until I am at least releasing beta versions. For now it's keep on chugging!

Work on Battle Blog continues. There are many fixes and much forward development since the last Alpha posting of Battle Blog. I will try to post a new version of it by end of March.

I noticed that the directory of operating Battle Blogs was experiencing serious link-rot in that I moved most of the working BB examples to other hosting arrangements but didn't update the links. That has been fixed. These are currently stable and fresh looking Battle Blog operations that are running today (lifted straight from the download page where these are listed directly):

I run all of these. Since BB has not spread as far as the original version pegged in security communication networks as being highly vulnerable, there are no versions "in the wild" to point you to yet. One reason I'm taking my time with Battle Blog 2.0 is to make sure that I can do everything within my expertise to do, to block SQL injection attacks and the like.

If you get one up and running, something I would not attempt until I post the fresh distributable, be sure to let me know so that I can include it on the list.

I've been moving offices and rebuilding my personal technical studio. Here is where we are on Battle Blog development progress right now. There won't be a release until most of the critical fixes are in place.

I am pleased to announce that the LinkHugger.com blog now uses Battle Blog.

This is the latest in a series of actual running Battle Blogs. As of this date the code is not available to the public at large. The sites using Battle Blog today are all affiliated with Battle Blog author David Pinero, aka Dave the Web Guy.

I took a break from Battle Blog last weekend to code up LinkHugger.com . This is a website that allows web links to be shared interpersonally using special "link codes". So, for example, you have your significant other at work in one office while you toil in another. LinkHugger.com allows you to share links throughout the day outside of e-mail or instant messaging. The service retains links until you've each visited them, or can keep them if you chooose. Anyway, it's a handy service I'm spreading the word about, and I know that most of you dropping in might be fans of my coding projects enough to do so yourself. Please hit the page and be sure to use the social media buttons to spread the word!